We have a team of 7. We create editorial calendars for all our clients. This includes sending email, social posts, ads, print, and web content. Assignee changes are key for us because different stages of content require different work. Writing to start, creative for graphics, then web to place on-site or create landing pages as needed, etc.
We break this down by creating an editorial calendar team and anyone on our team who creates or edits content is a member of that team. That way the editorial calendar project for each client can live on its own and have its own timeline/calendar and not be mixed in with other processes. Also, since the editorial calendar is more collaborative with client, we can share it with them and not worry about sharing other things that live in other projects that are more sensitive we might not want the client to see or that they may not need to be bogged down with.
Every post gets a deadline for when it will actually be posted live. Internally we have a process in place where we know how much lead time we need. It’s managed with custom fields for stage approval with notifications set for person responsible.
When we started we did this with sub tasks:
Fundraising Email (Due date of June 20)
Outline (Due June 1)
Draft (Due June 10)
Image (Due June 15)
Client Approval (Due June 18)
That became cumbersome and did not work well for timeline view.
We moved to a structure where we use the main task and custom fields for stage, since stage is standardized. We also have custom fields for channel (email, ads, web, etc). For email, we have a universe field. We segment our emails to different groups, so custom field for that is (Full List, 90 day openers, donors only, etc).
That worked very well and keeps the timeline view clean.
It also allows us to have a better view into resource assignment if we do a quick view on timeline.
We color code the custom fields and we can get a quick overview of where things are in timeline view by color as well.
This view is a quick status view. We use a simple red/yellow/green to denote whether it’s complete, queued, drafting. Gray means just planning.
We also have channel view. Gray for email, blue for Facebook, red for Ads, etc.
If we see too much blue, maybe we move a facebook post to another medium. If we see too much grey, we move an email to social, etc.
Assigning:
We change task assignee as we move through that process. it’s easier doing that and works well with notifications and is cleaner than using tags.
We start our day looking at My Tasks and Inbox, but aside from that we use the awesome Slack integration and our team gets notified by a channel on changes to tasks.
Then as we progress through that task you see how its reported in slack. Change of assignee.
Culture
That keeps us tight between asana and slack, and our team is always in the know on any project, regardless of changes and new assignments (or changes of assignee on existing tasks moving through a process.)
Now, if your team members don’t pay attention to slack/asana - that’s a different issue and nothing you do in slack or asana will fix that. They need to adopt the culture of checking certain apps on a regular schedule.
In my experience - the culture of checking certain apps has to be taught alongside the training of using those apps.
Probably went sideways from addressing your original question - but hope that helps.
